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Post by Casey on Aug 16, 2009 7:40:13 GMT
I disagree, I think that Ysengrin is the only one in the story with outward hostility. I think everyone else pretty much wants to carry on with their lives and pretend the other half didn't exist. If the Court were openly hostile to the Forest, I don't think they would bother training and providing the mediums for their negotiations. Now the events at the end of "Ties" might demonstrate that there are in fact ongoing hostilities, or at least there were during the era before Surma became a medium and spent all her time cavorting in the Forest, but even there it appears to be only from a certain faction in the Forest (or else Surma wouldn't have been doing said cavorting).
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Post by pepoluan on Aug 16, 2009 17:27:22 GMT
You do have a point there, Casey.
I still believe there is -- was -- some hostility between Forest and Court. After all, that is the reason why Coyote split them apart.
Then, for some reasons unknown, there's a cease-fire of sorts. The mediums (media?) may be acting as diplomats -- peace-emissars, if you will -- to bring one side's grievances to the other, and vice versa.
And even though a cease-fire is in effect, bad blood still remains. Else, why would Ysengrin be so riled? Or Rey becoming so upset to learn that Robot crossed the bridge?
Now to relate this to the thread's topic:
Someone outside of The Court may realize this, and placed his/her/their 'thousand eyes' to keep watch over any developing situations.
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Post by warrl on Aug 17, 2009 23:10:57 GMT
Ysengrim claimed that the tic-tocs did damage to the cliff side, but the illustration Tom drew that showed the nature of the damage. By itself the phrase could be taken to mean many things; there are many kinds of damage. I therefore see two possible reasons why tom drew the illustration. One, it may have been apparent to everyone involved the kind of damage he implied. Two, it could be because that was what really happened. Three, the picture in question is more detail of what Ysengrim claimed he had found. It isn't necessarily the case that a web comic shows every single line of dialog even in a relatively focused scene like this. In fact we KNOW that Tom left out some stuff, because what Ysengrim was saying to the headmaster got faded out while the "camera" turned to Annie and Coyote - and then went back kind of in mid-conversation. So it's entirely plausible that the picture was glossing over a (slightly) more detailed description. (Am I right? I don't know. I know I've seen NOTHING that indicates anyone - other than Ysengrim - knows what would happen to a Tic-Toc buried on the Gillitie side of the Annan Waters. There's no obvious way it's plausible that the Court *would* know. And I don't trust Ysengrim's word on the subject.)
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Post by Casey on Aug 17, 2009 23:32:58 GMT
I was all set to tell you that you made an excellent point with the background conversation, warrl... but then I checked it, and what you're referring to transpired between Ysengrin and Eglamore in their conversation about the events on the bridge, well before the topic of the Tic Toc was raised.
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rageboy
Junior Member
just like real cows! only with lasers.
Posts: 91
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Post by rageboy on Aug 18, 2009 5:44:41 GMT
I think his point was that if Tom glossed over conversation there (events on the bridge) then what was to keep him from glossing over conversation about the Tic Toc
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Post by Casey on Aug 18, 2009 6:15:03 GMT
His argument was that since you see an unworded conversation in the background, then conversation happened that we didn't "hear". The reverse of that would be, if we do not see an unworded conversation in the background, then there isn't one.
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Post by judgedeadd on Sept 9, 2009 22:04:18 GMT
Sorry for reviving, but I just thought about something.
Anja stated that for a long time they've been trying to capture a Tic-Toc and study it. Question is: how come they didn't manage to do so yet? Are the Tic-Tocs so nimble that they manage to escape any attempts to capture them? Cannot the staff set up some nets or traps? Didn't they ever try to, say, sneak up behind one, throw something heavy at it and study the broken remains?
You'd think that studying the Tic-Tocs would be quite a priority--I mean, if there were mysterious mechanical birds wandering around with impunity and watching everything, possibly relaying it to some unknown party, at MY place, I'd want to catch them pretty quickly.
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Post by King Mir on Sept 9, 2009 22:13:38 GMT
That's a good point. It can't be hard to shoot down a bird.
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jon77
Full Member
Posts: 245
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Post by jon77 on Sept 10, 2009 7:39:16 GMT
Sorry for reviving, but I just thought about something. Anja stated that for a long time they've been trying to capture a Tic-Toc and study it. Question is: how come they didn't manage to do so yet? Are the Tic-Tocs so nimble that they manage to escape any attempts to capture them? Cannot the staff set up some nets or traps? Didn't they ever try to, say, sneak up behind one, throw something heavy at it and study the broken remains? You'd think that studying the Tic-Tocs would be quite a priority--I mean, if there were mysterious mechanical birds wandering around with impunity and watching everything, possibly relaying it to some unknown party, at MY place, I'd want to catch them pretty quickly. Well, Zimmy threw a stick at one. Does that count? But it got away...
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Post by Casey on Sept 10, 2009 16:25:51 GMT
Oh I saw this post and meant to reply yesterday.
Until the meeting with Ysengin and Coyote, I don't think anyone had any idea that the birds were mechanical. And, speaking as an amateur ornithologist, people aren't generally in the habit of killing toucan-sized birds just so they can find out more about them.
Heading off the likely counter-argument of "How could they possibly not know that they were mechanical when they go 'tic-toc'??"... Yes but Annie was surprised to find it was mechanical, even after a whole flock of them was going tic-toc around her, and one even went "BEEEEEE!" beside her. So I gather from that that those sounds are subtle enough that an observer would not automatically know it's a robot. And I gather that, because that's exactly what happened.
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Post by Seth Thresher on Sept 10, 2009 18:51:15 GMT
Absolutely, birds are able to make all kinds of noises, from clicks to what else have you. Personally, I like to think the "BEEEE" would be more like a fire alarm type of deal, but considering all the other mess that was going down, it was easy for the present parties to not pay attention to it and instead to Annie, who was in the process of being knocked over the edge of the cliff.
All the same, if nobody had captured a tic-toc before, there is no huge argument for them being mechanical. I was as surprised as Annie when I read that. Really, the best a casual observer would have to give them a hunch along those lines would be their obvious tic-toc sound, the strange beak, and perhaps the ill-fitting skin. But really not one of those is enough to go "Hey, all these things are robots!" considering all the other strange going-ons in the court, and the diversity you see in birds anyway. When you don't have anything to go on, the idea of "hey, maybe it's just a weird bird living in a weird place" sounds the most believable, and the most obvious.
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Post by King Mir on Sept 10, 2009 22:04:15 GMT
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Post by Seth Thresher on Sept 11, 2009 20:12:43 GMT
Okay, I pretty much hate myself for saying this, but "irregardless" isn't the word you're looking for. It's just regular old "regardless". Sorry, that's like my only grammar pet peeve, but it's a zinger 6.6
Anyhow, maybe Anya could sense that? But she hasn't said as much, and so we can't go assuming that she has, necessarily. It's a possibility, one of many.
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Post by Casey on Sept 11, 2009 20:27:53 GMT
I was going to say it Seth but coming from me it'd have been worse I think.
I will, however, nitpick that Mrs. Donlan's name is Anja, not Anya. Although it is pronounced like the latter.
Actually the reason I didn't post was because I thought Mir did have a good point about Anja's sensing ability. I thought it was an etheric sensing ability, but I really don't know. She might have indeed known they were robotic. No one seemed outwardly surprised about that at the meeting. But then, Maybe Annie simply told them that much.
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Post by King Mir on Sept 12, 2009 16:56:21 GMT
Yeah, old habits die hard. I really should know better though.
I doubt Annie told them anything. She's not the type to volunteer, and if anja had asked what happened, she would have known where Annie got her blinker stone.
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Post by Seth Thresher on Sept 12, 2009 20:55:03 GMT
I totally knew it was Anja, but I was so sleepy that I second guessed myself wrong ^^;;
You know, I wonder if there's a repository somewhere in the Court that contains all the Court's current endeavors? One that our plucky heroine's will run across and help us out a bit. Doubtful though, and that's not a bad thing.
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